Chapter 34

"Good! I take the other side. I know something of Roxmouth,--he's seldom baffled. Miss Vancourt will be the Duchess before next year!"

"Not a bit of it! Next year Miss Vancourt will still be Miss Vancourt!" said Charlemont. emphatically--"She's a woman of character, and if she doesn't intend to marry Roxmouth, nothing will make her. She's got a mind of her own,--most women's minds are the minds of their favourite men."

"He-he-te-he--te-he--he!" giggled the young man who had before spoken,--"I know a girl---"

"Shut up, old chappie! You 'know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows'--that's what YOU know!" said Charlemont. "Come and have a look at the motor."

Whereupon they rose from the table and dispersed.

From that day, however, a certain additional interest was given to the house-party entertainment at Abbot's Manor. Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay and Lady Beaulyon fell so neatly into the web which Maryllia carefully prepared for them, that she soon found out what a watch they kept upon her, and knew, without further trouble, that she must from henceforth regard them as spies in her aunt and Lord Roxmouth's service. The men took no part in this detective business, but nevertheless were keenly inquisitive in their own line, more bets being given and taken freely on what was likely to be the upshot of affairs. Meanwhile, Lord Roxmouth and Mr. Longford, sometimes accompanied by Sir Morton Pippitt, and sometimes without him, called often, but Maryllia was always out. She had two watch- dogs besides her canine friend, Plato,--and these were Cicely and Julian Adderley. Cicely had pressed the 'moon calf' into her service, and had told him just as much as she thought proper concerning Roxmouth and his persecution of her friend and patroness.

"Go as often as you can to Badsworth Hall,"--she commanded him--"and find out all their movements there. Then tell ME,--and whenever Roxmouth comes here to call, Maryllia will be out! Be vigilant and faithful!"

And she had shaken her finger at him and rolled her dark eyes with such tragic intensity, that he had entered zealously into the spirit of the little social drama, and had become as it were special reporter of the Roxmouth policy to the opposing party.

But this was behind the scenes. The visible action of the piece appeared just now to be entirely with Maryllia and her lordly wooer,--she as heroine, he as hero,--while the 'supers,' useful in their way as spies, messengers and general attendants, took their parts in the various scenes with considerable vivacity, wondering how much they might possibly get out of it for themselves. If, while they were guests at Abbot's Manor, an engagement between Lord Roxmouth and Maryllia Vancourt could be finally settled, they felt they could all claim a share in having urged the matter on, and 'worked' it. And it was likely that in such a case, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, with millions at her disposal, would be helpful to them in their turn, should they ever desire it. Altogether, it seemed a game worth playing. None of them felt any regret that Maryllia should be made the pivot round which to work their own schemes of self- aggrandisement. Besides, no worldly wise society man or woman could be expected to feel sorry for assisting a young woman to attain the position of a Duchess. Such an idea would be too manifestly absurd.

"It will soon be over now,"--said Cicely, consolingly, one afternoon in the last week of Maryllia's entertaining--"And oh, how glad we shall be when everybody has gone!"

"There's one person who won't go, I'm afraid!" said Maryllia.

"Roxmouth? Well, even HE can't stay at Badsworth Hall for ever!"

"No,--but he can stay as long as he likes,--long enough to work mischief. Sir Morton Pippitt won't send him away,--we may be sure of that!"

"If HE doesn't go, I suppose WE must?" queried Cicely tentatively.

Maryllia's eyes grew sad and wistful.

"I'm afraid so--I don't know--we shall see!"--she replied slowly-- "Something will have to be settled one way or another--pleasantly or unpleasantly."

Cicely's black brows almost met across her nose in a meditative frown.

"What a shame it is that you can't be left in peace, Maryllia!"--she exclaimed--"And all because of your aunt's horrible money! Why doesn't Roxmouth marry Mrs. Fred?"

"I wish he would!" said Maryllia, heartily, and then she began to laugh. "Then it would be a case of 'Oh my prophetic soul! mine uncle!' And I should be able to say: 'My aunt is a Duchess.' Imagine the pride and glory of it!"

Cicely joined in her laughter.

"It WOULD be funny!" she said--"But whatever happens, I do hope Roxmouth isn't going to drive us away from the Manor this summer. You won't let him, will you?"

Maryllia hesitated a moment.

"It will depend on circumstances," she said, at last--"If he persists in staying at Badsworth, I must leave the neighbourhood. There's no help for it. It would only be for a short time, of course--and it seems hard, when I have only just come home, as it were,--but there,--never mind, Cicely! We'll treat it as a game of hare and hounds,--and we'll baffle the hounds somehow!"

Cicely gave a comic gesture of resignation to the inevitable.

"Anyhow, if we want a man to help us,"--she said,--"There's Gigue. Fortunately he's here now."

Gigue WAS there--very certainly there, and all there. Louis Gigue, renowned throughout the world for his culture of the human voice divine, had arrived the previous day direct from Paris, and had exploded into the Manor as though he were a human bombshell. He had entered at the hour of afternoon tea, wild-eyed, wild-haired, travel-soiled, untidy and eminently good-natured, and had taken everybody by surprise. He had rushed up to Maryllia, and seizing her hand had kissed it rapturously,--he had caught Cicely in his arms and embraced her enthusiastically with a 'Mon enfant prodigue!' and, tossing his grizzled locks from off his broad forehead, he had seated himself, sans ceremonie, amidst the company, as though he had known everyone present all his life.

"Mon Dieu, ze mal der mer!" he had exclaimed--"Ze bouleversement of ze vagues! Ze choses terribles! Ze femmes sick!--zen men of ze coleur blieu! Ah, quel ravissement to be in ze land!"

Gigue's English was his own particular dialect--he disdained to try and read a single word of it, but from various sources he had picked up words which he fitted into his speech as best it suited him, with a result which was sometimes effective but more often startling. Maryllia was well accustomed to it, and understood what she called 'Gigue's vernacular'--but the ladies and gentlemen of her house- party were not so well instructed, and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, whose knowledge of the French language was really quite extraordinary, immediately essayed the famous singing-master in his own tongue.

"Esker vous avez un moovais passage, Mo'sieur?" she demanded, with placid self-assurance--"Le mer etait bien mal?"

Gigue laughed, showing a row of very white strong teeth under his grizzled moustache, as he accepted a cup of tea from Cicely's hand, who gave him a meaning blink of her dark eyes as she demurely waited upon him.

"Ah, Madame! Je parle ze Inglis seulement in ze England! Oui, oui! Je mer etait comme l'huile, mais avec un so-so!" And he swayed his hands to and fro with a rocking movement--"Et le so-so faisaient les dames--ah, ciel!--so-so!"

And he placed his hand delicately to his head, with an inimitable turning aside gesture that caused a ripple of laughter. Maryllia's eyes sparkled with fun. She saw Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay surveying Gigue through her lorgnon with an air of polite criticism amounting to disdain,--she noted the men hanging back a little in the way that well-born Britishers do hang back from a foreigner who is 'only' a teacher of singing, especially if they cannot speak his language,-- and she began to enjoy herself. She knew that Gigue would say what he thought or what he wanted to say, reckless of censure, and she felt the refreshment and relief of having one, at least, in the group of persons around her, who was not in her Aunt Emily's service, and who uttered frankly his opinions regardless of results.

"Et maintenant,"--said Gigue, taking hold of Cicely's arm and drawing her close up to his knee--"Comment chante le rossignol? Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do! Chantez!"

All the members of the house-party stared,--they had taken scarcely any notice of Cicely Bourne, looking upon her as more or less beneath their notice--as a 'child picked up in Paris'--a 'waif and stray'--a 'fad of Maryllia Vancourt's'--and now here was this wild grey-haired man of renown bringing her into sudden prominent notice.

"Chantez!" reiterated Gigue, furrowing his brows into a commanding frown--"Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do!"

Cicely's dark eyes flashed--and her lips parted.

"Do--re--mi--sol---"

Round and full and clear rang the notes, pure as a crystal bell,-- and the listeners held their breath, as she made such music of the common scale as only a divinely-gifted singer can.

"Bien!--tres-bien!" said Gigue, approvingly, with a smile round at the company--"Mademoiselle Cicely commence a chanter! Ze petite sera une grande cantatrice! N'est-ce-pas?"

A stiffly civil wonderment seemed frozen on the faces of Lady Beaulyon and the others present. Wholly lacking in enthusiasm for any art, they almost resented the manner in which Cicely was thus brought forward as a kind of genius, a being superior to them all. Gigue sniffed the air, as though he inhaled offence in it. Then he shook his finger with a kind of defiance.

"Mais--pas en Angleterre!" he said--"Ze petite va commencer a Milan- -St. Petersburg--Vienna! Zen, ze Inglis vill say--'Ha ha! Zis prima donna chante pour les Francais, les Italiens, les Russes!--il faut qu'elle chante pour nous!' Zen--zey vill pay ze guinea--ces commes des moutons! Zey follow les autres pays--zey know nosing of ze art demselves!"

Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay coughed delicately.

"Music is so very much overdone in England"--she said, languidly-- "One gets so tired of it! Concerts are quite endless during the season, and singers are always pestering you to take tickets. It's quite too much for anyone who is not a millionaire."

Gigue did not catch this flow of speech--but Cicely heard it,

"Well, I shall never ask anyone to 'take tickets' to hear me!" she said, laughing. "A famous prima donna never does that kind of thing!"

"How do you know you will be famous?" asked Lady Beaulyon, amused.

"Instinct!" replied Cicely, gaily--"Just as the bird knows, it will be able to make a nest, so do I know I shall be famous! Don't let us talk any more about singing! Come and see the garden, Gigue!--I'll take you round it--and I want a chat with you."

The two went off together, much to the relief of the rest of the party.

"What an extraordinary-looking creature!" said Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay--"Is he quite a gentleman, Maryllia?"

Maryllia smiled.

"He is a gentleman according to my standard," she said. "He is honest, true to his friends, and faithful to his work. I ask nothing more of any man."

She changed the subject of conversation,--and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, in the privacy of her own apartment, confided to her husband that she really thought Maryllia Vancourt was a little 'off her head'--just a little.

"Because, really,"--said Mrs. Courtenay--"when it comes to harbouring geniuses in one's own house, it is quite beyond all reason. I sympathise so much with poor Mrs. Fred! If Maryllia would only marry Lord Roxmouth, all these flighty and fantastic notions of hers about music and faithful friends and honour and principle would disappear. I am sure they would!--and she would calm down and be just like one of us."

Mr. Bludlip Courtenay stared hard through his monocle.

"Why don't you talk to her about it?" he said--"You might do more for Roxmouth than you are doing, Peggy! I may tell you it would mean good times for both of us if you pushed that affair on!"

Mrs. Courtenay looked meditative.

"I'll try!"--she said, at last--"Roxmouth is to dine here to-morrow night--I'll say something before he comes."

And she did. She took an opportunity of finding Maryllia alone in her morning-room, where she was busy answering some letters. Gliding in, without apology, she sank into the nearest comfortable chair.

"We shall soon all be gone from this dear darling old house!" she said, with a sigh--"When are you coming back to London, Maryllia?"

"Never, I hope,"--Maryllia answered--"I am tired of London,--and if I go anywhere away from here for a change it will be abroad--ever so far distant!"

"With Lord Roxmouth?" suggested Mrs. Courtenay, with a subtle blink in her eyes.

Maryllia laid down the pen she held, and looked straight at her.

"I think you are perfectly aware that I shall never go anywhere with Lord Roxmouth,"--she said--"Please save yourself the trouble of discussing this subject! I know how anxious you are upon the point-- Aunt Emily has, of course, asked you to use your influence to persuade me into this detestable marriage--now do understand me, once and for all, that it's no use. I would rather kill myself than be Lord Roxmouth's wife!"

"But why--" began Mrs. Courtenay, feebly.

"Why? Because I know what kind of a man he is, and how hypocritically he conceals his unnameable vices under a cloak of respectability. I can tolerate anything but humbug,--remember that!"

Mrs. Courtenay winced, but stuck to her guns.

"I'm sure he's no worse than other men!"--she said--"And he's perfectly devoted to you! It would be much better to be Duchess of Ormistoune, than a poor lonely old maid looking after geniuses. Geniuses are perfectly horrible persons! I've had experience with them. Why, I tried to bring out a violinist once--such a dirty young man, and he smelt terribly of garlic--he came from the Pyrenees--but he was quite a marvellous fiddler--and he turned out most ungratefully, and married my manicurist. Simply shocking! And as for singers!--my dear Maryllia, you never seem to realise what an utter little fright that Cicely Bourne of yours is! She will never get on with a yellow face like that! And SUCH a figure!"

Maryllia laughed.

"Well, she's only fourteen---"

"Nonsense!" declared Mrs. Courtenay--"She tells you that--but she's twenty, if she's a day! She's 'doing' you, all round, and so is that artful old creature Gigue! Taking your money all for nothing!--you may be sure the two of them are in a perfect conspiracy to rob you! I can't imagine why you should go out of your way to pick up such people--really I can't--when you might marry into one of the best positions in England!"

Maryllia was silent. After a pause, she said gently:

"Is there anything else you want to tell me? I'm rather pressed for time,--I have one or two letters to write---"

"Oh, I see you want to get rid of me," and Mrs. Courtenay rose from her chair with a bounce--"You have become so rude lately, Maryllia,- -you really have! Your aunt is quite right! But I'm glad you have asked Roxmouth to dine to-night--that is at least one step in the right direction! I'm sure if you will let him say a few words to you alone---"

Maryllia lifted her eyes.

"I have already asked you to drop this subject," she said.

"Well!--if you persist in your obstinacy, you can only blame yourself for losing a good chance,"--said Mrs. Courtenay, with real irritation--"You won't see it, of course, but you're getting very passee, Maryllia--and it's only an old friend of your aunt's like myself that can tell you so. I have noticed several wrinkles round your eyes--you should massage with some 'creme ivoire' and tap those lines--you really should--tap on to them so---" and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay illustrated her instructions delicately on her own pink- and-white dolly face with her finger-tips--"I spend quite an hour every day tapping every line away round my eyes--but you've really got more than I have---"

"I'm not so young as you are, perhaps!" said Maryllia, with a little smile--"But I don't care a bit how I look! If I'm getting old, so is everyone--it's no crime. If we live, we must also die. People who sneer at age are likely to be sneered at themselves when their time comes. And if I'm growing wrinkles, I'd rather have country ones than town ones. See?"

"Dear me, what odd things you do say!" and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay shook out her skirts and glanced over her shoulder at her own reflection in a convenient mirror--"You seem to be quite impossible at times---"

"Yes,--Aunt Emily always said so!"--interposed Maryllia, quietly.

"And yet think of the advantages you have had!--the education--the long course of travel!--you should really know the world by this time better than you do?"--went on the irrepressible lady--"You should surely be able to see that there is nothing so good for a woman as a good marriage. Everything in a girl's life points to that end--she is trained for it, dressed for it, brought up to it--and yet here you are with a most brilliant position waiting for you to step into it, and you turn your back upon it with contempt! What do you imagine you can do with yourself down here all alone? There are no people of your own class residing nearer to you than three or four miles distant--the village is composed of vulgar rustics--the rural town is inhabited only by tradespeople, and though one of your near neighbours is Sir Morton Pippitt, one would hardly call him a real gentleman--so there's really nobody at all for YOU to associate with. Now is there?"

Maryllia glanced up, her eyes sparkling.

"You forget the parson!" she said.

"Oh, the parson!" And Mrs. Courtenay tittered. "Well, you're the last woman in the world to associate with a parson! You're not a bit religious!"

"No," said Maryllia--"I'm afraid I'm not!"

"And you couldn't do district visiting and soup kitchens and mothers' meetings"--put in Mrs. Courtenay--"It would be too sordid and dull for words. In fact, you wil simply die of ennui down here when the summer is over. Now, if you married Roxmouth---"

"There would be a gall-moon, instead of a honey one," said Maryllia, calmly,--"But there won't be either. I MUST finish my letters! Do you mind leaving me to myself?"

Mrs. Courtenay tossed her head, bit her lip, and rustled out of the room in a huff. She reported her ill-success with 'Maryllia Van' to her husband, who, in his turn, reported it to Lord Roxmouth, who straightway conveyed these and all other items of the progress or retrogression of his wooing to Mrs. Fred Vancourt. That lady, however, felt so perfectly confident that Roxmouth would,--with the romantic surroundings of the Manor, and the exceptional opportunities afforded by long afternoons and moonlit evenings,-- succeed where he had hitherto failed, that she almost selected Maryllia's bridal gown, and went so far as to study the most elaborate designs for wedding-cakes of a millionaire description.

"For,"--said she, with comfortable self-assurance--"St. Rest, as I remember it, is just the dullest place I ever heard of, except heaven! There are no men in it except dreadful hunting, drinking provincial creatures who ride or play golf all day, and go to sleep after dinner. That kind of thing will never suit Maryllia. She will contrast Roxmouth with the rural boors, and as a mere matter of good taste, she will acknowledge his superiority. And she will do as I wish in the long run,--she will be Duchess of Ormistoune."

XXII

The long lazy afternoons of July, full of strong heat and the intense perfume of field-flowers, had never seemed so long and lazy to John Walden as during this particular summer. He felt as if he had nothing in the world to do,--nothing to fill up his life and make it worth living. All his occupations seemed to him very humdrum,--his garden, now ablaze with splendid bloom and colour, looked tawdry, he thought; it had been much prettier in spring-time when the lilac was in blossom. There was not much pleasure in punting,--the river was too glassy and glaring in the sun,--the water dripped greasily from the pole like warm oil--besides, why go punting when there was nobody but one's self to punt? Whether it was his own idle fancy, or a fact, he imagined that the village of St. Rest and its villagers had, in some mysterious way, become separated from him. Everybody in the place, or nearly everybody, had something to do for Miss Vancourt, or else for one or other of Miss Vancourt's guests. Everything went 'up to the Manor '--or came 'down from the Manor'--the village tradespeople were all catering for the Manor-- and Mr. Netlips, the grocer, driving himself solemnly ever to Riversford one day, came back with a board--'a banner with a strange device'--painted in blue letters on a white ground, which said:

PETROL STORED HERE.

This startling announcement became a marvel and a fascination to the eyes of the villagers, every one of them coming out of their houses to look at it, directly it was displayed.

"You'll be settin' the 'ouse on fire, Mr. Netlips, I'm afraid," said Mrs. Frost, severely, putting her arms akimbo, and sniffing at the board as though she could smell the spirit it proclaimed--"You don't know nothink about petrol! An' we ain't goin' to have motor-cars often 'ere, please the Lord's goodness!"

Mr. Netlips smiled a superior smile.

"My good woman,"--he said, with his most magisterial air--"if you will kindly manage your own business, which is that of pruning the olive and uprooting the vine, and leave me to manage my establishment as the reversible movement of the age requires, it will be better for the equanimity of the gastritis."

"Good Lord!" and Mrs. Frost threw up her hands--"You're a fine sort of man for a grocer, with your reversibles and your gastritis! What in the world are you talking about?"

Mr. Netlips, busy with the unpacking of a special Stilton cheese which he was about to send 'up to the Manor,' waved her away with one hand.

"I am talking above your head altogther, Mrs. Frost,"--he said, placidly--"I know it! I am aware that my consonances do not tympanise on your brain. Good afternoon!"

"Petrol Stored Here!"--said Bainton, standing squat before the announcement, as he returned from his day's work--"Hor-hor-hor! Hor- hor! I say, Mr. Netlips, don't blow us all into the middle of next week. Where does ye store it? Out in the coal-shed? It's awful 'spensive, ain't it?"

"It is costly,"--admitted Mr. Netlips, with a grandiose manner, implying that even if it had cost millions he would have been equal to 'stocking' it--"But the traveling aristocrat does not interrogate the lucrative matter."

"Don't he?" and Bainton scratched his head ruminatively. "I s'pose you knows what you means, Mr. Netlips, an' you gen'ally means a lot. Howsomever, I thought you was dead set against aristocrats anyway-- your pol'tics was for what you call masses,--not classes, nor asses neither. Them was your sentiments not long ago, worn't they?"

Mr. Netlips drew himself up with an air of offended dignity.

"You forestall me wrong, Thomas Bainton,"--he said--"And I prefer not to amplify the conference. A sentiment is no part of a political propinquity."

With that, he retired into the recesses of his 'general store,' leaving Bainton chuckling to himself, with a broad grin on his weatherbeaten countenance.